The wind got stronger, slowing me even further, until it felt like I was battering up against a solid but invisible wall. I swore and gave up the fight. I couldn’t feel Frederick’s presence anyway, even if the force of his magic continued to whip us. That he could do so from such a distance and on the run only emphasized his strength.

The cloaks were having no more luck against the wind than I was, but they nevertheless kept trying. Maybe they had no other option. Maybe Luke’s very last order had been one aimed at his so-called trusted lieutenant—and if that was the case, then maybe Rinaldo’s boast of controlling the cloaks was little more than hot air.

I called to the mother again. Her energy surged through me as sweetly as a kiss, then fanned outward, seeming to know what I wanted. As fingers of multicolored flame wrapped around each of the cloaks and incinerated them, a weaker source of fire washed across my senses.

I spun around. Jackson was running, at least a dozen cloaks on his tail. I swore again and sent the mother’s fire racing forward even as I followed her. As the cinders of the cloaks began to rain across the ground, Jackson spun around and pointed to the Nicholson Street side of the Royal Exhibition Building. “There’re other people in the park,” he said, shouting against the howling wind. “They’re also under attack.”

I altered direction and raced past the old fountain. The wind abruptly fell silent, and screams filled the void. As I neared the corner, I shifted back to human form. No matter how much I wanted to help whoever was being attacked, I wasn’t about to out myself. Far too many people already knew about my existence—any more, and we’d have to leave. I wasn’t ready to say good-bye to Melbourne just yet.

Around the corner, I discovered chaos.

There were a dozen red cloaks and five humans—three men and two women. Two of the men and one of the women were already down, their clothes torn and bodies bloodied. Several red cloaks knelt beside each of them, but they weren’t feeding. They were dragging their claws deep into their skin, cutting them open. Infecting them.

A shudder that was part fury, part horror, went through me, and fire exploded from my body—fire that was both mine and the mother’s. Flaming arrows that burned with all the colors of creation hit each of the cloaks, and as their ashes rained across the pavement, the remaining woman dropped to her knees and started crying. Her companion knelt beside her and placed an arm around her shoulders, but his gaze sought mine.

“I don’t know how you did that,” he said, his voice hoarse with pain, “but thank you.”